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ROBERTS CJ

SOTOMAYOR J

KENNEDY J

GINSBURG J

BREYER J

ALITO J

SCALIA J

THOMAS J

KAGAN J

27 JANUARY 2014

Judgment

Justice Scalia

(delivered the opinion of the Court[1])

The question before us is the meaning of the phrase “changing clothes” as it
appears in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 52Stat. 1060, as amended,
29 U. S. C. §201 et seq. (2006 ed. and Supp. V).

I. Facts and Procedural History

Petitioner Clifton Sandifer, among others, filed suit under the Fair Labor
Standards Act against respondent United States Steel Corporation in the District
Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The plaintiffs in this putative
collective action are a group of current or former employees of respondent’s
steelmaking facilities.
[2] As relevant here, they seek backpay for time
spent donning and doffing various pieces of protective gear. Petitioners assert
that respondent requires workers to wear all of the items because of hazards
regularly encountered in steel plants.

Petitioners point specifically to 12 of what they state are the most common
kinds of required protective gear: a flame-retardant jacket, pair of pants, and
hood; a hardhat; a “snood”; “wristlets”; work gloves; leggings; “metatarsal”
boots; safety glasses; earplugs; and a respirator.
[3] At bottom, petitioners want to be paid for
the time they have spent putting on and taking off those objects. In the
aggregate, the amount of time – and thus money – involved is likely to be quite
large. Because this donning-and-doffing time would otherwise be compensable
under the Act, U. S. Steel’s contention of non-compensability stands or falls
upon the validity of a provision of its collective-bargaining agreement with
petitioners’ union, which says that this time is non-compensable.
[4] The validity of that provision depends, in
turn, upon the applicability of
29 U. S. C. §203(o) to the time at issue. That
subsection allows parties to decide, as part of a collective-bargaining
agreement, that “time spent in changing clothes .... at the beginning or end of
each workday” is non-compensable.

The District Court granted summary judgment in pertinent part to U. S. Steel,
holding that donning and doffing the protective gear constituted “changing
clothes” within the meaning of §203(o). No. 2:07–CV–443 RM, 2009 WL
3430222, *4–*10 (ND Ind., Oct. 15, 2009). The District Court further assumed
that even if certain items – the hardhat, glasses, and earplugs – were not
“clothes,” the time spent donning and doffing them was “de minimis” and
hence non-compensable. Id., at *6. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit upheld those conclusions. 678 F. 3d 590, 593–595 (2012).
[5]

We granted certiorari, 568 U. S. ___ (2013), and now affirm.

II. Legal Background

The Fair Labor Standards Act, enacted in 1938, governs minimum wages and
maximum hours for non-exempt “employees who in any workweek [are] engaged in
commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or [are] employed in an
enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.”
29 U. S. C. §206(a) (minimum wages);
§207(a) (maximum hours); see §213 (exemptions). The Act provides that “employee”
generally means “any individual employed by an employer,” §203(e)(1), and, in
turn, provides that to “employ” is “to suffer or permit to work,” §203(g).

The Act did not, however, define the key terms “work” and “workweek” – an
omission that soon let loose a landslide of litigation. See IBP, Inc. v Alvarez,
546 U. S. 21–26 (2005). This
Court gave those terms a broad reading, culminating in its holding in Anderson v Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.,
328 U. S. 680 (1946), that “the
statutory workweek includes all time during which an employee is necessarily
required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty or at a prescribed
workplace.” Id., at 690–691. That period, Anderson explained,
encompassed time spent “pursu[ing] certain preliminary activities after arriving
...., such as putting on aprons and overalls [and] removing shirts.” Id.,
at 692–693. “These activities,” the Court declared, “are clearly work” under the
Act. Id., at 693.

Organized labor seized on the Court’s expansive construction of
compensability by filing what became known as “portal” actions (a reference to
the “portals” or entrances to mines, at which workers put on their gear).
“PORTAL PAY SUITS EXCEED A BILLION,” announced a newspaper headline in late
1946. N. Y. Times, Dec. 29, 1946, p. 1. Stating that the Fair Labor Standards
Act had been “interpreted judicially in disregard of long-established customs,
practices, and contracts between employers and employees,” Congress responded by
passing the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, 61Stat. 84, as amended,
29 U. S. C. §251 et seq. (2006 ed. and Supp. V).
§251(a).

The Portal-to-Portal Act limited the scope of employers’ liability in various
ways. As relevant here, it excluded from mandatorily compensable time [61Stat.
87, 29 U. S. C. §254(a)(2)]

activities which are preliminary to or postliminary
to [the] principal activity or activities [that an employee is employed
to perform], which occur either prior to the time on any particular
workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on
any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity or
activities.

The Department of Labor promulgated a regulation explaining that the
Portal-to-Portal Act did not alter what is known as the “continuous workday
rule,” under which compensable time comprises “the period between the
commencement and completion on the same workday of an employee’s principal
activity or activities .... [,] whether or not the employee engages in work
throughout all of that period.” 12 Fed. Reg. 7658 (1947); 29 CFR §790.6(b)
(2013). Of particular importance to this case, a Labor Department interpretive
bulletin also specified that whereas “changing clothes” and “washing up or
showering” “would be considered ‘preliminary’ or ‘postliminary’ activities” when
“performed outside the workday and .... under the conditions normally present,”
those same activities “may in certain situations be so directly related to the
specific work the employee is employed to perform that [they] would be regarded
as an integral part of the employee’s ‘principal activity.’” 12 Fed. Reg. 7659,
and n. 49; 29 CFR §790.7, and n. 49.

Hours Worked. – In determining for the purposes of
[the minimum-wage and maximum-hours sections] of this title the hours
for which an employee is employed, there shall be excluded any time
spent in changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each
workday which was excluded from measured working time during the week
involved by the express terms of or by custom or practice under a bona
fide collective-bargaining agreement applicable to the particular
employee.

Simply put, the statute provides that the compensability of time spent
changing clothes or washing is a subject appropriately committed to collective
bargaining.

In Steiner v Mitchell,
350 U. S. 247 (1956), the Court echoed
the Labor Department’s 1947 regulations by holding that “changing clothes and
showering” can, under some circumstances, be considered “an integral and
indispensable part of the principal activities for which covered workmen are
employed,” reasoning that §203(o) “clear[ly] impli[ed]” as much. Id.,
at 254–256. And in IBP, we applied Steiner to treat as compensable
the donning and doffing of protective gear somewhat similar to that at issue
here, 546 U. S., at 30. We said that “any activity that is ‘integral and
indispensable’ to a ‘principal activity’ is itself a ‘principal activity’ ”
under §254(a), id., at 37.

As relevant to the question before us, U. S. Steel does not dispute the
Seventh Circuit’s conclusion that “[h]ad the clothes-changing time in this case
not been rendered non-compensable pursuant to [§]203(o), it would have
been a principal activity.” 678 F. 3d, at 596. Petitioners, however, quarrel
with the premise, arguing that the donning and doffing of protective gear does
not qualify as “changing clothes.”

III. Analysis

A. “Clothes”

We begin by examining the meaning of the word “clothes.”
[6] It is a “fundamental canon of statutory
construction” that, “unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as
taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Perrin v United
States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979).

Dictionaries from the era of §203(o)’s enactment indicate that
“clothes” denotes items that are both designed and used to cover the body and
are commonly regarded as articles of dress. See Webster’s New International
Dictionary of the English Language 507 (2d ed. 1950) (Webster’s Second)
(defining “clothes” as “[c]overing for the human body; dress; vestments;
vesture”); see also, e.g., 2 Oxford English Dictionary 524 (1933)
(defining “clothes” as “[c]overing for the person; wearing apparel; dress,
raiment, vesture”). That is what we hold to be the meaning of the word as used
in §203(o). Although a statute may make “a departure from the natural and
popular acceptation of language,” Greenleaf v Goodrich,
101 U. S. 278–285 (1880) (citing Maillard v Lawrence, 16 How. 251 (1854)), nothing in the text or
context of §203(o) suggests anything other than the ordinary meaning of
“clothes.”

Petitioners argue that the word “clothes” is too indeterminate to be ascribed
any general meaning but that, whatever it includes, it necessarily excludes items designed and used to protect against workplace hazards. That
position creates a distinction between “protection,” on the one hand, and
“decency or comfort,” on the other – a distinction that petitioners appear to have
derived from Webster’s Second, which elaborates that “clothes” is “a general
term for whatever covering is worn, or is made to be worn, for decency or
comfort.” Webster’s Second 507 (emphasis added). But that definition does
not exclude, either explicitly or implicitly, items with a protective function,
since “protection” and “comfort” are not incompatible, and are often synonymous.
A parasol protects against the sun, enhancing the comfort of the bearer – just as
work gloves protect against scrapes and cuts, enhancing the comfort of the
wearer. Petitioners further assert that protective items of apparel are referred
to as “clothing” rather than “clothes.” They point out that, when introduced by
the adjective “protective,” the noun “clothing” is used more commonly than
“clothes.” That is true enough, but it seems to us explained by euphonic
preference rather than difference in meaning. We see no basis for the
proposition that the unmodified term “clothes” somehow omits protective
clothing.

Petitioners’ proffered distinction, moreover, runs the risk of reducing §203(o)
to near nothingness. The statutory compensation requirement to which §203(o)
provides an exception embraces the changing of clothes only when that conduct
constitutes “an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for
which covered workmen are employed.” Steiner, 350 U. S., at 256. But
protective gear is the only clothing that is integral and indispensable
to the work of factory workers, butchers, longshoremen, and a host of other
occupations. Petitioners’ definition of “clothes” would largely limit the
application of §203(o) to what might be called workers’ costumes, worn by
such employees as waiters, doormen, and train conductors. Petitioners insist
that their definition excludes only items with some specific work-hazard-related protective function, but that limitation essentially
abandons the assertion that clothes are for decency or comfort, leaving no basis
whatever for the distinction.

Petitioners’ position is also incompatible with the historical context
surrounding §203(o)’s passage, since it flatly contradicts an
illustration provided by the Labor Department’s 1947 regulations to show how
“changing clothes” could be intimately related to a principal activity. See 29
CFR §790.7, and n. 49. Those regulations cited the situation in which “an
employee in a chemical plant .... cannot perform his [job] without putting on
certain clothes” and specified that “[s]uch a situation may exist where the
changing of clothes on the employer’s premises is required by law, by rules of
the employer, or by the nature of the work.” 12 Fed. Reg. 7660, and n. 65; 29
CFR §790.8(c), and n. 65. And petitioners’ position contradicts this Court’s
only prior opinion purporting to interpret §203(o). Steiner,
announced less than a decade after the statute’s passage, suggested in dictum
that, were there a pertinent provision of a collective-bargaining agreement,
§203(o) would have applied to the facts of that case – where workers
“ma[d]e extensive use of dangerously caustic and toxic materials, and [we]re
compelled by circumstances, including vital considerations of health and
hygiene, to change clothes” on the job site. 350 U. S., at 248, 254–255.

Petitioners contend that any attempt at a general definition of “clothes”
will cast a net so vast as to capture all manner of marginal things – from
bandoliers to barrettes to bandages. Yet even acknowledging that it may be
impossible to eliminate all vagueness when interpreting a word as wide-ranging
as “clothes,” petitioners’ fanciful hypotheticals give us little pause. The
statutory context makes clear that the “clothes” referred to are items that are
integral to job performance; the donning and doffing of other items would create
no claim to compensation under the Act, and hence no need for the §203(o)
exception. Moreover, even with respect to items that can be regarded as integral
to job performance, our definition does not embrace the view, adopted by some
Courts of Appeals, that “clothes” means essentially anything worn on the
body – including accessories, tools, and so forth. See, e.g., Salazar v Butterball, LLC, 644 F. 3d 1130, 1139–1140 (CA10 2011) (“clothes” are
“items or garments worn by a person” and include “knife holders”). The
construction we adopt today is considerably more contained. Many
accessories – necklaces and knapsacks, for instance – are not “both designed and
used to cover the body.” Nor are tools “commonly regarded as articles of dress.”
Our definition leaves room for distinguishing between clothes and wearable items
that are not clothes, such as some equipment and devices.
[7]

Respondent and its amici, by contrast, give the term in question a
capacious construction, effectively echoing the Courts of Appeals mentioned
above. On this view, “clothes” encompasses the entire outfit that one puts on to
be ready for work. That interpretation is, to be sure, more readily
administrable, but it is even more devoid of a textual foundation than
petitioners’ offering. Congress could have declared bargainable under §203(o)
“time spent in changing outfits,” or “time spent in putting on and off all the items needed for work.” For better or worse, it used the narrower
word “clothes.” “The role of this Court is to apply the statute as it is
written – even if we think some other approach might accord with good policy.”
Burrage v United States, ante at 14 (internal quotation marks
and brackets omitted).

B. “Changing”

Having settled upon the meaning of “clothes,” we must now consider the
meaning of “changing.” Petitioners assert that when used with certain
objects – such as “tire,” “diaper,” or, indeed, “clothes” – the term “changing”
connotes substitution. That is undoubtedly true. See Webster’s Second 448
(defining “change” as “to make substitution of, for, or among, often among things
of the same kind ....; as, to change one’s clothes”). One would not
normally say he has changed clothes when he puts on an overcoat. Petitioners
conclude from this that items of protective gear that are put on over the
employee’s street clothes are not covered by §203(o).

We disagree. Although it is true that the normal meaning of “changing
clothes” connotes substitution, the phrase is certainly able to have a different
import. The term “changing” carried two common meanings at the time of §203(o)’s
enactment: to “substitute” and to “alter.” See, e.g., 2 Oxford English
Dictionary 268 (defining “change,” among other verb forms, as “to substitute
another (or others) for, replace by another (or others)” and “[t]o make (a
thing) other than it was; to render different, alter, modify, transmute”). We
think that despite the usual meaning of “changing clothes,” the broader
statutory context makes it plain that “time spent in changing clothes” includes
time spent in altering dress.

The object of §203(o) is to permit collective bargaining over the
compensability of clothes-changing time and to promote the predictability
achieved through mutually beneficial negotiation. There can be little
predictability, and hence little meaningful negotiation, if “changing” means
only “substituting.” Whether one actually exchanges street clothes for work
clothes or simply layers garments atop one another after arriving on the job
site is often a matter of purely personal choice. That choice may be influenced
by such happenstances and vagaries as what month it is, what styles are in
vogue, what time the employee wakes up, what mode of transportation he uses, and
so on. As the Fourth Circuit has put it, if the statute imposed a substitution
requirement “compensation for putting on a company-issued shirt might turn on
something as trivial as whether the employee did or did not take off the t-shirt
he wore into work that day.” Sepulveda v Allen Family Foods, Inc.,
591 F. 3d 209, 216 (2009). Where another reading is textually permissible, §203(o)
should not be read to allow workers to opt into or out of its coverage at random
or at will.
[8]

C. Application

Applying the foregoing principles to the facts of this case, we hold that
petitioners’ donning and doffing of the protective gear at issue qualifies as
“changing clothes” within the meaning of §203(o).

Petitioners have pointed to 12 particular items: a flame-retardant jacket,
pair of pants, and hood; a hardhat; a snood; wristlets; work gloves; leggings;
metatarsal boots; safety glasses; earplugs; and a respirator. The first nine
clearly fit within the interpretation of “clothes” elaborated above: they are
both designed and used to cover the body and are commonly regarded as articles
of dress. That proposition is obvious with respect to the jacket, pants, hood,
and gloves. The hardhat is simply a type of hat. The snood is basically a hood
that also covers the neck and upper shoulder area; on the ski slopes, one might
call it a “balaclava.” The wristlets are essentially detached shirtsleeves. The
leggings look much like traditional legwarmers, but with straps. And the
metatarsal boots – more commonly known as “steel-toed” boots – are just a special
kind of shoe.

The remaining three items, by contrast, do not satisfy our standard. Whereas
glasses and earplugs may have a covering function, we do not believe that they
are commonly regarded as articles of dress. And a respirator obviously falls
short on both grounds. The question is whether the time devoted to the putting
on and off of these items must be deducted from the non-compensable time. If so,
federal judges must be assigned the task of separating the minutes spent
clothes-changing and washing from the minutes devoted to other activities during
the period in question.

Some Courts of Appeals, including the Court of Appeals in this case, have
sought to avoid, or at least mitigate, this difficulty by invoking the doctrine
de minimis non curat lex (the law does not take account of trifles).
This, they hold, enables them to declare non-compensable a few minutes actually
spent on something other than clothes-changing – to wit, donning and doffing
non-clothes items.

Although the roots of the de minimis doctrine stretch to ancient soil,
its application in the present context began with Anderson. There, the
Court declared that because “[s]plit-second absurdities are not justified by the
actualities of working conditions or by the policy of the Fair Labor Standards
Act,” such “trifles” as “a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled
working hours” may be “disregarded.” 328 U. S., at 692. “We [thus] do not ....
preclude the application of a de minimis rule.” Ibid.

We doubt that the de minimis doctrine can properly be applied to the
present case. To be sure, Anderson included “putting on aprons and
overalls” and “removing shirts” as activities to which “it is appropriate to
apply a de minimis doctrine.” Id., at 692–693. It said that,
however, in the context of determining what preliminary activities had to be
counted as part of the gross workweek under §207(a) of the Fair Labor Standards
Act.
[9] A de minimis doctrine does not fit
comfortably within the statute at issue here, which, it can fairly be said, is
all about trifles – the relatively insignificant periods of time in which
employees wash up and put on various items of clothing needed for their jobs. Or
to put it in the context of the present case, there is no more reason to disregard the minute or so necessary to put on glasses, earplugs, and
respirators, than there is to regard the minute or so necessary to put on
a snood. If the statute in question requires courts to select among trifles, de minimis non curat lex is not Latin for
close enough for government
work.

That said, we nonetheless agree with the basic perception of the Courts of
Appeals that it is most unlikely Congress meant §203(o) to convert federal
judges into time-study professionals. That is especially so since the
consequence of dispensing with the intricate exercise of separating the minutes
spent clothes-changing and washing from the minutes devoted to other activities
is not to prevent compensation for the uncovered segments, but merely to leave
the issue of compensation to the process of collective bargaining. We think it
is possible to give the text of §203(o) a meaning that avoids such
relatively inconsequential judicial involvement in “a morass of difficult,
fact-specific determinations,” Sepulveda, 591 F. 3d, at 218.

The forerunner of §203(o) – the Portal-to-Portal Act provision whose
interpretation by the Labor Department prompted its enactment – focused narrowly
on the activities involved: “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary
to [the employee’s] principal activity or activities.” §254(a)(2). Section 203(o),
by contrast, is addressed not to certain “activities,” but to “time spent” on
certain activities, viz., “changing clothes or washing.” Just as one can speak
of “spending the day skiing” even when less-than-negligible portions of the day
are spent having lunch or drinking hot toddies, so also one can speak of “time
spent changing clothes and washing” when the vast preponderance of the period in
question is devoted to those activities. To be sure, such an imprecise and
colloquial usage will not ordinarily be attributed to a statutory text, but for
the reasons we have discussed we think that appropriate here. The question for
courts is whether the period at issue can, on the whole, be fairly
characterized as “time spent in changing clothes or washing.” If an employee
devotes the vast majority of the time in question to putting on and off
equipment or other non-clothes items (perhaps a diver’s suit and tank) the
entire period would not qualify as “time spent in changing clothes” under §203(o),
even if some clothes items were donned and doffed as well. But if the vast
majority of the time is spent in donning and doffing “clothes” as we have
defined that term, the entire period qualifies, and the time spent putting on
and off other items need not be subtracted.

In the present case, the District Court stated that “the time expended by
each employee donning and doffing” safety glasses and earplugs “is minimal,”
2009 WL 3430222, *6, a conclusion with which the Seventh Circuit agreed, 678 F.
3d, at 593. As for respirators, the District Court stated that they “are kept
and put on as needed at job locations,” 2009 WL 3430222, *2, which would render
the time spent donning and doffing them part of an employee’s normal workday and
thus beyond the scope of §203(o). The Seventh Circuit did not address
respirators at all, and we are not inclined to disturb the District Court’s
factual conclusion.

* * *

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

[1] Justice Sotomayor joins this opinion
except as to footnote 7.

[2] Petitioners filed this action under
29 U. S. C. §216(b), which establishes a
cause of action that may be maintained “by any one or more employees for and in
behalf of himself or themselves and other employees similarly situated.” Pending
resolution of the instant summary-judgment dispute, a Magistrate Judge set aside
a motion to certify the suit as a collective action, see No. 2:07–CV–443 RM,
2009 WL 3430222, *1, n. 1 (ND Ind., Oct. 15, 2009), but petitioners assert that
their ranks are about 800 strong.

[3] The opinions below include
descriptions of some of the items. See 678 F. 3d 590, 592 (CA7 2012); 2009 WL
3430222, *2, *6. And the opinion of the Court of Appeals provides a photograph
of a male model wearing the jacket, pants, hardhat, snood, gloves, boots, and
glasses. 678 F. 3d, at 593.

[4] The District Court concluded that the
collective-bargaining agreement provided that the activities at issue here were
non-compensable, 2009 WL 3430222, *10, and the Seventh Circuit upheld that
conclusion, 678 F. 3d, at 595. That issue was not among the questions on which
we granted certiorari, and we take the import of the collective-bargaining
agreement to be a given.

[5] Petitioners also sought, inter alia,
backpay for time spent traveling between the locker rooms where they don and
doff at least some of the protective gear and their workstations. The District
Court denied that portion of respondent’s motion for summary judgment, 2009 WL
3430222, *11, and the Seventh Circuit reversed, 678 F. 3d, at 595–598. That
issue is not before this Court, so we express no opinion on it.

[6] Although the Labor Department has
construed §203(o) on a number of occasions, the Government has expressly
declined to ask us to defer to those interpretations, which have vacillated
considerably over the years.

[7] Petitioners and their amici
insist that equipment can never be clothes. While we do not believe that every
wearable piece of equipment qualifies – for example, a wristwatch – our construction
of “clothes” does not exclude all objects that could conceivably be
characterized as equipment.

[8] This Court has stated that
“exemptions” in the Fair Labor Standards Act “are to be narrowly construed
against the employers seeking to assert them.” Arnold v Ben Kanowsky,
Inc.,
361 U. S. 388, 392 (1960). We need not
disapprove that statement to resolve the present case. The exemptions from the
Act generally reside in §213, which is entitled “Exemptions” and classifies
certain kinds of workers as uncovered by various provisions. Thus, in
Christopher v SmithKline Beecham Corp., 567 U. S. ___, ___–___, n.
21 (2012) (slip op., at 19–20, n. 21), we declared the narrow-construction
principle inapplicable to a provision appearing in §203, entitled “Definitions.”

[9] We note, moreover, that even in that
context, the current regulations of the Labor Department apply a stricter de
minimis standard than Anderson expressed. They specify that “[a]n
employer may not arbitrarily fail to count as hours worked any part, however
small, of the employee’s fixed or regular working time or practically
ascertainable period of time he is regularly required to spend on duties
assigned to him.” 29 CFR §785.47.

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